Apple, IBM and the Future of the PowerPC

We've been speculating for some time about what is going to save the PowerPC from obscurity. Various options have been postulated, including a Book-E Motorola fabbed G5 (which has, not surprisingly, utterly failed to materialize on the desktop) and most recently, this fabled IBM god-chip that nobody can quite pinpoint as the future of the platform. There are a lot of crossed fingers here, including mine.

I think, however, that in order to understand the future of the PowerPC it's essential to understand the history. The Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance was formed with various motives. Motorola wanted to create a fast chip to replace the aging 68k series. IBM wanted to create a computing platform built around it to recapture the PC industry they accidentally ceded to the cloners in the 80s. Apple just wanted faster chips so they could stay competitive.

Apple was never supposed to be the sole customer for PowerPC chips. The PPC was intended as an open platform that any OS could run on, but the Windows NT port was offed at version 3.51 and BeOS jumped ship for Intel shortly thereafter. To make matters worse, Apple killed the various licensing programs (arguably in self defense), leaving themselves as the only PC maker purchasing PowerPC chips.

The PowerPC, from a business perspective, has therefore failed. Motorola is obviously perfectly content to market their Ã¼ber-SIMD engine as a glorified, all-purpose DSP for use in embedded devices and let Apple have what it can use. Due to the painfully small fraction of the market Apple must represent, that's all they can really ask for. Given this, is it any wonder that we're calling 1.25 Ghz chips cutting-edge?

IBM, for their part, placed substantially more time and money into the PPC design, and has evidently resigned themselves to its failure on the desktop. They seem to be licking their wounds and leveraging what intellectual property they have left for their server solutions, which actually make some money. Tellingly, they haven't helped design a desktop CPU since the G3.

Now, I have no doubt that this IBM god-chip will at some point exist. They made the press release, and IBM usually sticks to their press releases, although their concept of a deadline seems somewhat nebulous at best. However, the big question everyone should be asking themselves is, "Will it be fast enough, cheap enough, soon enough?" And will IBM be able to follow it up with faster chips at the same breakneck pace that Intel and AMD compete at?

I don't think so. While companies like Sony and Nintendo can order custom chips for their various systems from IBM, Apple lacks the financial clout and market share (read: sale opportunities for Big Blue) to make such a request. As long as Apple continues to represent such an irrelevant factor in IBM and Motorola's business decisions, they will have to be content with table scraps.

quote: The PowerPC, from a business perspective, has therefore failed.

Wrong!

I would argue that the above statement might only hold true if you consider PowerPC as a desktop processor. As an embedded processor, I believe it is doing quite well and that is where IBM and Motorola are spending their development dollars (I believe, haven't looked up actual numbers, if they're even available).It is not wise to ignore the embedded systems market and its effect on chip development. The number of embedded system devices (for example cars, phones, and networking equipment) outweighs the number of PCs (once again in my estimation, haven't bothered looking up numbers to determine to what degree).

I am really tired of all the theads and venting to the effect that somehow Motorola OWES Apple and/or the Mac fans something on CPUs.

The fact of the matter is that Apple is a business, and it gets what it spends its money to buy. No investment in pushing desktop CPU's forward = behind-the-curve improvement in performance.

Steve thinks that plastic will do it all: flower-power, dalmation, cube, imac2.

Beside bashing Moto, the other weirdo Mac fantasy is that everything would be groovy if Moto didn't have some weird armlock on Apple that "prevented" Apple from turning to IBM to get rescued.

When was the last time IBM built a CPU _it_designed_ that Apple could afford to buy, and which would beat the best that Moto had available at the same time? I'm waiting for the answer here... and there are two answers:

A) NEVER

B) the brief interim when the 750CX was out before the MPC7450 debuted.

The latter is debateable at best, incidentally.

OK, and then why is this? Because Apple has never SPENT ANY MONEY on better CPUs. IBM and Moto are businesses; they don't do charity. Would you do charity for an arrogant SOB like Steve anyway? Particularly after the AIM fiasco and Apple's shafting of the AIM partners, particularly Moto? And then Apple's amazing near-death experience?

Apple never ceases to trumpet the 4.5 B$ "in the bank" that came from Mac customers ... spend a modest chunk on that with either Moto or IBM and I think Apple would be significantly better off.

The very next sentence after the one you quoted says exactly the same thing. I should have said that specifically, PowerPC on the desktop had was a failure as far as IBM/Moto are concerned, and that Apple is hurting for this.

Both Motorola AND IBM are spending a lot of effort in the Embedded domain and I think it would be foolish to think that wasn't a major factor under consideration when they started the PowerPC (otherwise why focus so much on low power). That was the point I was trying to make. PowerPC looks worst from Apple's point of view not Motorola or IBM (in my opinion).

As for this constant griping about Apple's cash surplus...Did you ever think that there's a very good reason why Apple maintains this surplus? I'm not a business person, so I may be off base here, but my understanding is that having a significant cash surplus has a big impact on the company's overall well-being. In fact I seem to recall that in the dark days, it was pointed to as one of the reasons why it was unlikely Apple would be the target of a hostile take-over. Keep in mind that Microsoft, who most consider to be a pretty aggressive business, also has a rather substantial cash surplus that they don't seem to be eating into all that quickly (though with that amount of money it would be hard to eat into quickly). View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gifIn general having a substantial savings to fall back on is considered a good thing. You could argue that these times are dark enough to warrant such action, but I don't think so.Now ignoring that...Apple is already paying for the chips they use (as far as I know). If you have them invest even more money into chip development, that's basically the same as paying more per chip. You're now increasing the component cost of every system using those chips. That means Apple either eats into their profit margin or raise the cost of the systems (something I don't think would be too popular). If Apple eats into their profit margin, then they're gambling on the hopefully improved systems selling sufficiently more to offset the losses. Otherwise they're just wasting their surplus on a one-time quick fix.They're are probably people who think this gamble is worthwhile. Personally, I'm a believer in the law of diminishing returns (in most cases) and there's only so much money you can realistically throw at a problem to fix it.

Don't assume that Apple is spending no resources (which translates into money) on furthering PPC development.

The thing that is really the most irritating about apple is that they are simply content in not letting anyone know what their future plans are. Intel/Amd publish cpu roadmaps on a semi regular basis. ATI, nVidia, Matrox, etc.. let out estimates and directions of where they are heading. Dell, Compaq, IBM let out rumors of what is going to be in their next desktops. Apple? Nothing, Zilch, zero.

quote:Originally posted by BadAndy:... Because Apple has never SPENT ANY MONEY on better CPUs. IBM and Moto are businesses; they don't do charity. Would you do charity for an arrogant SOB like Steve anyways?

Why do you see it as charity? Business is business... if Apple went to IBM and said 'please design me a kickass cpu to rule all other cpus, fab it in Mordor for all I care' seems to me IBM (or whoever) would simply say OK this is how much it's gonna cost for development and production, plus a percentage profit margin to make it worth our while. At which point Apple can agree or disagree to the terms.

Don't you think Moto would have designed faster G4 processors more quickly if they could?I was under the impression that certain technical problems prevented the ramping up of the G4 clock speed, as opposed to budget constraints.

Well...who did AMD have to sell to? They were always percieved as an inferior chip vender--that was, until they bit the bullet and decided to stop being Intel's lapdog and begin to make competitive chips. From there they all but captured the enthusiast market and OEM's began to consider them. All in all they were pretty on top of the game. Did AMD have many customers? Nope. Were they gonna any customers with their current line of chips? Nope. So they made a competitive product and did fairly well. Now..Does Moto have many (desktop) customers? No. Are they going to expand their customer base with their current lineup? No. So what do they do about it? Nothing. And that's why Moto sucks.

quote: In fact I seem to recall that in the dark days, it was pointed to as one of the reasons why it was unlikely Apple would be the target of a hostile take-over.

Other way around, actually. Having a lot of cash in the bank makes a company a prime target for a takeover. Take Apple, for example. Right now they have about 4 billion in the bank. That works out to about $11 per outstanding share. Since the share price is $15, someone who wanted to take over would immediately get all but $4 of that back after they gained control of Apple.

The fact that all PowerMacs now have dual processors should increase the number of chips that Apple buys from Motorola drastically and should have some effect on Motorola's desire to advance the chip for desktop purposes.

quote: In fact I seem to recall that in the dark days, it was pointed to as one of the reasons why it was unlikely Apple would be the target of a hostile take-over.

Other way around, actually. Having a lot of cash in the bank makes a company a prime target for a takeover. Take Apple, for example. Right now they have about 4 billion in the bank. That works out to about $11 per outstanding share. Since the share price is $15, someone who wanted to take over would immediately get all but $4 of that back after they gained control of Apple.

Umm... couldn't Apple just spend their money buying shares themselves to up the price?I honestly don't know, but it seems reasonable to me.

quote:OK, and then why is this? Because Apple has never SPENT ANY MONEY on better CPUs.

What you are saying here, and what your whole argument hinges on, is that Apple COULD have gotten much faster CPUs if they had been prepared to pay. I'm not convinced they had the option (from Motorola). I've seen Motorola fail on the desktop/workstation with the 68k, 88k and the PPC series of processors. Every time they have gotten stuck at some point, and not progressed while Intel did. What makes you so sure that Motorola are able to compete with Intel on price/performance? Or even performance in absolute terms? They never have been so far, despite the x86 architectural baggage.

The relationship between Moto and Apple is not quite typical, but generally I'd say that it's the job of the producer to make attractive and compelling products, not the job of the customer to throw money at the producer hoping that something useful might come out of it that they can buy.

By your reasoning, Motorola simply won't design a competitive desktop chip because Apple doesn't fund such design work. Then, could you please tell me, if that is the case, why should Apple stay with Motorola CPUs (except for the obvious inertia)? You are arguing that their desktop business model doesn't work out - well isn't it time to change it or quit then?

The G4 is a neat little chip, respin it on finer lithography giving higher clockspeeds and a bit more on-chip cache, add on-chip dual DDR controllers, and it should be able to hang in there for a while yet despite being a fairly old and simple design. For all I know, they may have such a chip ready for Apple consumption within months. Given that they have more modern memory designs ready and available elsewhere in their PPC product lineup, it doesn't seem too hard to update the G4. The sad thing is that I don't even expect them to do that much, much less design something which actually comes out ahead instead of being "almost competitive".

Given Motorolas track record, I find your faith in their ability to design competitive high-performance CPUs a bit odd.

quote:Why do you see it as charity? Business is business... if Apple went to IBM and said 'please design me a kickass cpu to rule all other cpus, fab it in Mordor for all I care' seems to me IBM (or whoever) would simply say OK this is how much it's gonna cost for development and production, plus a percentage profit margin to make it worth our while. At which point Apple can agree or disagree to the terms.

_EXACTLY_, and Apple had no interest or intent of spending the money.

Further, IBM has the Power4 (the Regatta series of 8-ways) and so if you imagine (and this is the total ridiculous fantasy of so many of the MacArsians) that cost is no object then you could imagine Mac "desktops" built around the existing Power4 8-way modules! Would that kick x86 butt? Sure! Is this anything except crackpipe dreams? NO.

But distilling the issue to really fundamental ones: you want a CPU that will compete with a top-end Pentium4 or and Athlon ... both running around 70W. There is NO embedded market worth shooting for that will tolerate any such power dissipation; it has too much impact on cost and volume and heat rejection issues on the ensuing products. Embedded PPC runs about 20 Watts tops. It is fricking unreasonable for you to think that either Motorola or IBM can build a 20 Watt processor that will beat what Intel can build with 70W ... and Apple not only wasn't willing to pay the development costs for a 70W-class CPU ... Steve loves fanless designs and didn't want to go there anyway!

The Intel CPU which is the best comparison point (in terms of performance at comparable power) for G4+ is the Tualatin P3 -- if you look at where it is and what it can do TODAY ... versus what G4+ can do TODAY ... it is remarkably close. And just a side-point, note that the Tualatins are stuck with a "slow" FSB not better than the G4+ ... for similar market constraints.

The Tualatin's are still the 1-U and most 2-U rackmount x86 CPU of choice... this niche is enough like embedded that the same issues apply.

quote:Don't you think Moto would have designed faster G4 processors more quickly if they could?

Your confusion here is that you think Moto designed the G4+ CPUs for Apple _as_desktop_CPUs_ , or for that matter that IBM designed the 750CX and follow-on ditto.

After AIM died, both Moto and IBM gave up on desktop "PC class" PPC as an investment that they wanted to spend their own money on. Heck, read Moto's SEC filings: they are brutally candid that Moto expects to get about squat from the PC marketplace.

The reality is that all of the PPC (until just possibly this reduced-cost Power4 that IBM says it will talk about in October) was targeted for embedded applications ... and in the embedded space, meaning in its power/performance/cost/integration tradeoffspace, these chips KICK BUTT. Nothing from Intel or AMD touch them.

Your "faster if they could" -- THEY COULD AND THEY DID ... they beat all the competion including IBM (despite the hype, IBM builds nothing that will run on 20 W and can catch the MPC7455) for performance in the market-constained space.

quote:I was under the impression that certain technical problems prevented the ramping up of the G4 clock speed, as opposed to budget constraints.

There was an era shortly after the introduction of the MPC7400 when Moto couldn't ramp it. Incidentally, there has never been a public explanation of why -- I have some guesses I won't go into here. The MPC7410 fixed the basic problems ... but it came out so shortly before the G4+ (the first being the MPC7450) ... and the G4+ series has ramped pretty well _FOR_AN_EMBEDDED_PRODUCT.

Please read this post: the embedded product design and life-cycle are different, and this is fundamental to understanding the realities at play here --

Now, final comment: the fat lady hasn't sung yet -- in the quest for performance at a power/cost point there is a continual see-saw over what is the optimum MP scale. This game plays out in super-computing ... and as the number of CPUs increase the engineering demands on the CPUs shift them back to "embedded like" constraints. This is why IBM uses PPC cores very damn similar to the IBM G3s for its most massively parallel supercomputers .

Apple has always pushed the notion that it could win with embedded CPUs by exploiting a greater degree of parallelism. For various reasons, it hasn't done that yet, really. But the game isn't over.

quote:fro:Well...who did AMD have to sell to? They were always perceived as an inferior chip vender--that was, until they bit the bullet and decided to stop being Intel's lapdog and begin to make competitive chips.

AMD's (really Sander's) determination to stick it to Intel and try to be competitive in the x86 marketplace is nothing short of heroic ... or egotistically suicidal ... your choice. The price/performance war that AMD ignited in the PC product space has been the greatest gift for every "PC" user (even Mac users!) there has ever been. Without it right now PC-land would probably have roughly 1 Ghz P3s, and PCs would cost alot more than they do ... and incidentally Macs would also be slower and more expensive. But all the manufacturers would be happy! --- At least equal profit from a much less demanding investment and technology ramp.

But AMD has been a financial cardiac kid since embracing this do-or-die strategy. Take a look at the financial numbers --- they are UGLY. It's not a given that AMD will be in the x86 marketplace in a year if they don't manage both the 0.13 micron transition and the Hammer introduction very successfully.

And Intel's numbers don't make them happy either. And then look at the PC manufacturers themselves -- they are dying left and right and even Dell looks sick these days.

The price/performance gas war will end soon somehow. And when it does the manufacturers will sit back and take some profits. IMO the first question on the table is whether AMD remains in the game. After that you can ask were in marketspace PPC and Moto and IBM reside, and what fraction they get. But they aren't going to disappear in embedded, not anytime soon. And it also tentatively looks like that 64-bit PPC might be a winner -- precisely because Intel screwed itself with iTanic, and the x-86 64-bit migration looks like a mess. Betting on Hammer means betting on AMD ... and that is a risky bet these days.

In this connection Macolytes suggesting that Apple should switch to AMD's hammer as "the solution" to performance/price issues are peddling what may well be a cyanide solution.

Ever since Moto was taken over by jr. it has be run into the ground. No vision whatsoever.

quote: I don't think so. While companies like Sony and Nintendo can order custom chips for their various systems from IBM, Apple lacks the financial clout and market share (read: sale opportunities for Big Blue) to make such a request. As long as Apple continues to represent such an irrelevant factor in IBM and Motorola's business decisions, they will have to be content with table scraps.

The difference is that this chip isn't being made for Apple, it's for IBM. Big Blue isn't stupid, if they can sell this chip to Apple, they might as well, it would also make it more legit in the desktop/workstation arena. And I really don't think MS calls up Intel requesting "insanely fast chips." Intel does it because they know that they will sell.

quote: By your reasoning, Motorola simply won't design a competitive desktop chip because Apple doesn't fund such design work. Then, could you please tell me, if that is the case, why should Apple stay with Motorola CPUs (except for the obvious inertia)? You are arguing that their desktop business model doesn't work out - well isn't it time to change it or quit then?

Soooo ... where do you want them to change to, and what will it cost, and do they have _any_ chance of surviving the transition?

Apple gambled with IBM and Motorola, when they put together the AIM allince .. that PPC could dominate x86. The wheels fell off the bus in bitter acrimony, basically Apple vs IBM, over a whole set of issues. Among the factors however at that time was the PC division of IBM which was a corporate 800 lb gorilla ... and was doing everything it could to sink PPC and sink AIM. Apple damn near imploded over total incompetence in both software development (the Copeland never-neverland era) and crummy incompetent hardware manufacture which was getting its ass handed to it in a sling by nothing startups like Power Computing. Folks ... _that's_ embarrassing.

Point of comparison, and I want folks to understand what it means: in all the years that Compaq owned the Dec Alpha (great CPU that), it spent slightly less than 1 B$ on continued developement of the design. This included a major re-design, and it included its own stand-alone design team.

Whats-his-body (the penalty for modest stupidity is that nobody should remember your name) knifed the Alpha for several reasons:

* he was buffaloed by iTanic panic ... he believed all the Intel FUD about how nothing could possibly compete

* Compaq's stock tanked, so he couldn't pay for it in the paper-money of stock options

* He was getting to the plan of selling Compaq to HP (that's what the deal really amounted to) and HP wanted another RISC architecture like the plague

But I take it you'd be pretty happy if Apple had something like where the Alpha would be today if they hadn't knifed it? And this is possible with the PPC-ISA .. .there is nothing about the ISA that makes this a problem. It is only the matter of being willing to spend the money. And in fact the real cost would likely be much less than this, because both Moto and particularly IBM have the capability and incentive to defray some of the costs, and provide the design team.

1 B$ is chump change to what the transistion costs for Apple would be to convert to x86 -- Apple can't afford to switch ... the only question is what strategy and which partners it choses to go forward with.

Please oh please let's not start yet another Apple on x86 debate. If people are interested, please start (or ressurrect) another thread so I can more easily avoid it. For the record I don't think it will ever happen.

Personally, I believe Apple has been working with Motorola and/or IBM on next-gen chips and dedicating resources on them. Like BadAndy has mentioned before in other threads, I think our current CPU dead time is at least partially due to the previous focus on the OS.

As for the Alpha comparison, do you know how much design was actually done by Compaq. I don't really have any information, but I was under the impression that most of the design work, even for the version released under the Compaq name, was done by the DEC engineers as DEC. But I could be wrong...

I also see computers slowly moving towards multi-processing configurations. It isn't happening as fast as I thought it would, but I think that's because of the complexity on the software side. Without software support, there's a limit to how useful multi-processing machines can be and writing MP software is MUCH harder than SP software (as I'm learning). I think as software engineers learn more about it and become more experienced you'll see bigger gains for MP machines in the consumer space (this already exists in other environments).

quote: By your reasoning, Motorola simply won't design a competitive desktop chip because Apple doesn't fund such design work. Then, could you please tell me, if that is the case, why should Apple stay with Motorola CPUs (except for the obvious inertia)? You are arguing that their desktop business model doesn't work out - well isn't it time to change it or quit then?

Soooo ... where do you want them to change to, and what will it cost, and do they have _any_ chance of surviving the transition?

Apple gambled with IBM and Motorola, when they put together the AIM allince .. that PPC could dominate x86. The wheels fell off the bus in bitter acrimony, basically Apple vs IBM, over a whole set of issues. Among the factors however at that time was the PC division of IBM which was a corporate 800 lb gorilla ... and was doing everything it could to sink PPC and sink AIM. Apple damn near imploded over total incompetence in both software development (the Copeland never-neverland era) and crummy incompetent hardware manufacture which was getting its ass handed to it in a sling by nothing startups like Power Computing. Folks ... _that's_ embarrassing.

Point of comparison, and I want folks to understand what it means: in all the years that Compaq owned the Dec Alpha (great CPU that), it spent slightly less than 1 B$ on continued developement of the design. This included a major re-design, and it included its own stand-alone design team.

Whats-his-body (the penalty for modest stupidity is that nobody should remember your name) knifed the Alpha for several reasons:

* he was buffaloed by iTanic panic ... he believed all the Intel FUD about how nothing could possibly compete

* Compaq's stock tanked, so he couldn't pay for it in the paper-money of stock options

* He was getting to the plan of selling Compaq to HP (that's what the deal really amounted to) and HP wanted another RISC architecture like the plague

But I take it you'd be pretty happy if Apple had something like where the Alpha would be today if they hadn't knifed it? And this is possible with the PPC-ISA .. .there is nothing about the ISA that makes this a problem. It is only the matter of being willing to spend the money. And in fact the real cost would likely be much less than this, because both Moto and particularly IBM have the capability and incentive to defray some of the costs, and provide the design team.

1 B$ is chump change to what the transistion costs for Apple would be to convert to x86 -- Apple can't afford to switch ... the only question is what strategy and which partners it choses to go forward with.

quote:Originally posted by BadAndy: And it also tentatively looks like that 64-bit PPC might be a winner -- precisely because Intel screwed itself with iTanic, and the x-86 64-bit migration looks like a mess. Betting on Hammer means betting on AMD ... and that is a risky bet these days.

BadAndy, why don't you give Itanium 2 & Opteron a chance to prove themselves?? I mean, WinXP 64 bit Itanium is not going so well now, and I am not sure how well WinXP 64 bit x86-64 is doing, along with Linux x86-64, but give them all a chance first before drawing false conclusions. Also, why do you seem so sure that AMD does not have what it takes to stay in the game?

Personally, I believe Apple has been working with Motorola and/or IBM on next-gen chips and dedicating resources on them. Like BadAndy has mentioned before in other threads, I think our current CPU dead time is at least partially due to the previous focus on the OS.

People keep saying this, but it doesn't make any more sense when a hundred people say it then it did the first time, none...

Why does developing an OS have to do with developing a new PPC core? Why would OS X have kept Apple so busy that they had to let their hardware wither? I mean, hardware engineers and software guys are different people, different teams right? And it can't be a money issue either, since Apple has that 4 billion in the bank that they're "oh so proud" of.

I agree with BadAndy, I think it's just disinterest, failure to understand the importance of raw CPU performance by Apple that led to this situation. They just thought they could get by with Altivec and pretty boxes and iApps.

1 B$ is chump change to what the transistion costs for Apple would be to convert to x86 -- Apple can't afford to switch ... the only question is what strategy and which partners it choses to go forward with.

So, what are the options? Frankly, I never thought I would own a computer-as-soap-opera, but it is somewhat entertaining View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif I think you imply, correct me if not, that multiple processors are one way to go. I had figured this was just a stop gap for the high end, since only high end apps take advantage of SMP. I think that would mean that consumer programs that need SMP for more speed, games, encoding, imaging, wouldn't get it, either because Apple probably wouldn't put two CPUs in an iMac, and couldn't in laptops, or because developers wouldn't bother even if they did. If every Mac went SMP tomorrow, it would still be years before most of the base ran duals. I saw. . .some benefit running a dual machine under W2K, a more responsive feel, but zero when I performed the above tasks, so I don't see this as a real solution.

What are there some other strategic moves Apple could make, besides dumping Steve?

quote:Originally posted by stephenb:fference is that this chip isn't being made for Apple, it's for IBM. Big Blue isn't stupid, if they can sell this chip to Apple, they might as well, it would also make it more legit in the desktop/workstation arena. And I really don't think MS calls up Intel requesting "insanely fast chips." Intel does it because they know that they will sell.

Who does IBM sell desktop PPCs to? Apple? Sonnet? That's barely a market share. And IBM sure as hell doesn't sell any systems that use desktop PPCs. Who exactly were you implying would buy this?

I'm sure it would be nice for IBM's pride to have fast, beefy G5s (or whatever Apple marketing decides to call it), but I can't imagine the potential sales justify the R&D.

How long does anyone here honestly believe IBM is going to continue funding new chip creation? How long will it be before IBM spins off what is left of its chip creation/manufactoring to either an independant entity or a seperate company.

IBM is restructuring themselves as services only company. Not at a blinding rate, but little by little they are approaching this.

My "simple" opinion is that Apple needs to act now with the money it has been stockpiling and do something. If they don't then they are going to enter into a war of attrition with falling sales. Everyone here forgets Steve is a *great* builder of hype, expectations and initial ramp up of company revenue... but he has never proven he can run a company for the long haul (at least one that works).

quote: Umm... couldn't Apple just spend their money buying shares themselves to up the price?I honestly don't know, but it seems reasonable to me.

That is one of the uses that companies put extra cash to. Others include paying a dividend, retiring debt early, and buying Citation jets for their CEOs.

But buying back stocks does not always have the intended effect of raising the stock price. Remember that the stock price is partly/largely the belief that Wall Street has about a company's future prospects. And Apple has--at least not recently--not been the apple (sorry) of Wall Street's eye.

quote:Originally posted by BadAndy:But distilling the issue to really fundamental ones: you want a CPU that will compete with a top-end Pentium4 or and Athlon ... both running around 70W. There is NO embedded market worth shooting for that will tolerate any such power dissipation; it has too much impact on cost and volume and heat rejection issues on the ensuing products. Embedded PPC runs about 20 Watts tops. It is fricking unreasonable for you to think that either Motorola or IBM can build a 20 Watt processor that will beat what Intel can build with 70W ... and Apple not only wasn't willing to pay the development costs for a 70W-class CPU ... Steve loves fanless designs and didn't want to go there anyway!

I was under the assumption that, now that the Pro line has gone DP accross the board the power dissapation requirements for both platforms' high end consumer systems have become very similar.

The new "Dual Optical" towers are still the MPC7455, right? It seems a dual 1GHz needs to dissipaite 42.6W typical and 60W max. I guess that would put the DP 1.25GHz around 53.25W typical/75W Max (I don't know enough about the topic to be sure if it's reasonable or not to scale it up linearly?).

On the x86 side you have the P4 2.53GHz w/ 59.3W typical (not sure about the max) and the Athlon XP-2200+ w/ 61.7W typical and 67.9W max.

I just thought it was interesting that both platforms probably require a similar level of cooling these days.

Well, Apple does indeed need to do something, especially for the laptops for instance. Do they really expect to put dual G4's in a TiBook to compete with the latest P4 laptop?? Unless Apple engineers a sweet cooling system for the latest TiBook, it will fry itself if it had duals.

View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

Note: Don't take my above post all that seriously. View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Seriously, though, if the TiBook is to be a very high end laptop for it's price, it really needs a boost, and the current pace of the mobile G4 ain't gonna cut it.

quote: Apple gambled with IBM and Motorola, when they put together the AIM allince .. that PPC could dominate x86. The wheels fell off the bus in bitter acrimony, basically Apple vs IBM, over a whole set of issues. Among the factors however at that time was the PC division of IBM which was a corporate 800 lb gorilla ... and was doing everything it could to sink PPC and sink AIM. Apple damn near imploded over total incompetence in both software development (the Copeland never-neverland era) and crummy incompetent hardware manufacture which was getting its ass handed to it in a sling by nothing startups like Power Computing. Folks ... _that's_ embarrassing.

And, folks, everytime we think that things are bad now, let us remember exactly what the dark days were really like, when Spindler ruled, when Copland couldn't even summon up enough fog to be called "vaporware," when the Performas were being sold in Sears. At very least, now Apple has a world-class OS that includes industrial strength underpinnings (if perhaps slow), and industrial design that is widely imitated rather than widely marked down for sale.

I Asked this question earlier: how likely is it that anothr proc can be dropped in there? What does the *existing* architecture say about the next generation. For example, there was a lot of speculation that the IBM chip has dual busses - can this architecture support dual busses? It appears they are designing for something other than what they are currently shipping. What.

Personally, I believe Apple has been working with Motorola and/or IBM on next-gen chips and dedicating resources on them. Like BadAndy has mentioned before in other threads, I think our current CPU dead time is at least partially due to the previous focus on the OS.

People keep saying this, but it doesn't make any more sense when a hundred people say it then it did the first time, none...

Why does developing an OS have to do with developing a new PPC core? Why would OS X have kept Apple so busy that they had to let their hardware wither? I mean, hardware engineers and software guys are different people, different teams right? And it can't be a money issue either, since Apple has that 4 billion in the bank that they're "oh so proud" of.

I agree with BadAndy, I think it's just disinterest, failure to understand the importance of raw CPU performance by Apple that led to this situation. They just thought they could get by with Altivec and pretty boxes and iApps.

So basically you think Apple's management are complete idiots. Fair enough, I suppose, but I disagree.

How hard is it to understand the concept of finite resources?In the time period before Apple bought Next, they were in serious trouble. Most of their development plans (software and hardware) were FUBAR. They were hemorhaging engineering talent. The clone experiment was worse than a failure (overrall marketshare decreasing and Apple's profits decreasing even faster). In this environment you don't think they would cut development projects? I'm not saying the completely stopped all hardware development. I'm speculating they seriously cut back on long-term future development (where long-term then equals current today). Don't forget some of their development efforts (Newton) didn't pan out as well as they had hoped.Apple didn't always have huge cash reserves (I'm pretty sure). Regardless when you're loosing many millions of dollars a quarter (don't remember how much total they lost but I'm pretty sure it was in the hundreds of millions if not more), it's usually not wise to spend what money you have on long-term projects before you figure out how to get out of your current crisis.If creditors are banging on your door, do you spend your money on long-term risky investments? I don't.

Why doesn't it make sense that Apple would currently be investing resources in chip development? The only problem is that CPU development is a long term project. You start spending resources on it years before you expect to see the usable results. Like all long-term projects, when you start you have to make guesstimates on what you'll need when that project comes to fruition. Sometimes those guesstimates are wrong, sometimes unforeseen problems pop up that set things back even further or force you to start over. Just because that happens doesn't mean you weren't trying.

Well I'm tired of repeating the same arguments over and over. I just think people tend to generate an overly simplified model of Apple's situation and then decry how stupid they are for not following the obvious conclusion the simplified model leads them to.

quote:Originally posted by Scud:Processors that require a 7lb heatsink, two fans and 53w are used for the embedded market?

I dislike the implied (at least as I read it) tone of this remark, but regardless, I would recommend you actually look up what the processor in question might require:Motorola's PPC stats pageA quick check led me to this page. It doesn't have the higher clocked chips, but the 1GHz MPC7455 claims a max power dissipation of 30W and a typical (whatever that means) of 21.3 Watts.Newer, faster chips possibly dissipate more heat, but probably not 76% more.

And yes, companies other than Apple use these chips for products other than personal computers.

Edit:I noticed that you probably got the 53W number from a previous post speculating on the total dissipation of 2 processors running at 1.25GHz. That doesn't mean other systems can't use just one of them.

Dragoth: If I remember right they burned through something like 1.5 billion over a year and a half. Granting $400 million was for Next, but at that rate it's not surprising everyone thought they were dead.

As of the quarter ending 29 June 2002, Apple had $1.25B in cash and cash equivalents, and $3B in short term investments.

So nw we can actually talk about real numbers. This currently ain't no $4.5B in cash that Apple can start throwing to the wind.

Apple has been responsible about maintaining positive cash flow, but this doesn't mean they've been "stockpiling" cash like some miserly grandmother.

Apple's constrained to a high degree, and as Radagast said in a different thread, they're acutely sensitive of their situation as a niche player that the press and public would turn on the moment they weren't able to make a profit or break even from quarter to quarter.

I'm not apologizing for them, because I'd love blazing new hardware, but they're doing a pretty OK job with the hand they dealt themselves into over the years under Jobs v.1, Sculley, and Spindler.

How long does anyone here honestly believe IBM is going to continue funding new chip creation? How long will it be before IBM spins off what is left of its chip creation/manufactoring to either an independant entity or a seperate company.

IBM is restructuring themselves as services only company. Not at a blinding rate, but little by little they are approaching this.

You really haven't looked at their mainframe systems. Go take a look at the zSeries and spend a time studying the architecture. Notice IBM isn't dependent on a outside party to produce their CPUs.

quote:Originally posted by BadAndy:Steve thinks that plastic will do it all: flower-power, dalmation, cube, imac2.

...

OK, and then why is this? Because Apple has never SPENT ANY MONEY on better CPUs. IBM and Moto are businesses; they don't do charity. Would you do charity for an arrogant SOB like Steve anyway? Particularly after the AIM fiasco and Apple's shafting of the AIM partners, particularly Moto? And then Apple's amazing near-death experience?

Well, keep in mind that for a few years, Apple had no OS or CPU good enough to sell computers, so plastic wasn't such a bad thing to fall back on. Sure beats talking cows and the surfer dude. But agreed, it's no way to grow a computer company.

Steve has clearly (to me) seen recovery of Apple as a 4 step strategy.

1) stop losing money2) build the best OS you can buy3) build mechanisms that take advantage of (2) so that users see value in the systems4) deploy across suitable hardware

You leave 4) to the end because it's so extremely expensive and there's not much point to having a 9GHz chip running OS 9, or even 10.0.0 for that matter.

And in spite of Intel continuing to charge ahead, I keep hearing about how much money it costs to build out the plants for the next generation of chips and how long it takes to recoup those costs. I'm curious how long this will last given that the embedded space is *so* much larger than the desktop space in terms of volume and revenues, and seems to (as you've pointed out) be fairly content with a slower ramp-up.

It seems that only Intel can win the desktop space. The big server space can afford high priced chips and the embedded space can win through volume, but if the desktop space stalls - then we start having real problems.

Apple is in a no-win situation on the desktop. They're the independents in a 2 party system. Even if Apple had a 4GHz G5, it'd still be too easy to argue that the market doesn't need more speed, that a 3GHz P4 is just fine, and Apple gets nowhere. After all, Apple is holding it's own through exactly this reasoning. So, I wonder, what's the value in investing in CPUs? Is it just a money pit?

'More' isn't enough to shift the market. 'Different' gets you somewhere. That's what the plastic was about - it was different, and different did get a certain market share boost. OS X is different, and it too will result in a boost. Faster CPUs - I don't think that'll quite do it. How about parallelism? How about grass roots distributed computing? How about unmatched hardware integration? These things will each appeal to a market that is looking for something that 'more' hasn't satisfied.

The big IBM chip might be a great thing for Apple, but in the end it just seems like more. I want to see different. Perhaps Apple will just bypass the CPU issue again. Maybe they're just positioning OS X to deploy across all CPUs. Wouldn't that be different -- if Apple returned to fat binaries and just shipped machines with whatever goddamn chip was fastest this month? Intel, AMD, IBM, Mot. Turn them all loose.

johnsonwax, i agree with your logic in some ways, but you fail to see the extremely poor value that the professional macs offer, and how this affects apple's ability to grow their market share. i honestly have no problem with a computer that costs 3 grand, but it better have tomorrow's technology, not yesterday's. if the powermacs introduced were much cheaper they wouldn't generate this level of controversy.

quote:Originally posted by Strad:As of the quarter ending 29 June 2002, Apple had $1.25B in cash and cash equivalents, and $3B in short term investments.

And the quarter before that it was reversed. 3B cash, 1.25 short term investments (or real close). There's been some accounting rules changes that redesignated some of the 'cash equivalents' that Apple owned as 'short term investments'. The 10Q didn't seem to indicate that anything was actually bought or invested in that would account for the change - it appeared to be entirely a change in the definition of 'short term investment'.

And if Apple had a burning desire to buy a 3B company, the fact that some of their assets are short term investments won't be their biggest problem going to the bargaining table.

It seems pretty clear Apple hasn't shown Motorola the money. The features of the new ppc chips from Mot seem interesting, but the 'perfect' piece hasn't been announced. (The one with less of the embedded bits, add the RapidIO controller, and both the floating point unit and the altivec in there.). I don't know performance stats, (since it is not even an announced piece, let alone a shipping piece), but it _sounds_ like a distinct improvement over what we've got.

I agree with what some of the others have been saying: When Next bought Apple and got paid for the privledge, there were simply more important things to deal with. There were rumors that Steve had _seriously_ irritated Motorola execs on a personal level, over and above the whole 'death to the clones' thing.

This has all been building since then, and the 18 months at 500 MHz would have competent management types executing contingency plans. We'd all like to know what they are View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif It doesn't make a lot of sense to start a major head-to-head type advertising campaign if you expect to be behind the curve for another couple of years though.

quote:Originally posted by kern:johnsonwax, i agree with your logic in some ways, but you fail to see the extremely poor value that the professional macs offer, and how this affects apple's ability to grow their market share. i honestly have no problem with a computer that costs 3 grand, but it better have tomorrow's technology, not yesterday's. if the powermacs introduced were much cheaper they wouldn't generate this level of controversy.

i'm still waiting for a mac worth spending 3k on.

No, I completely see the extremely poor value for those users. My argument is that jamming more GHz in there (what everyone is blaming Mot over) isn't the only way (or even the best way) to address those users.

Normally, I'd remind the audience that some markets aren't worth pursuing, and given Apple's CPU state, that might be a reasonable statement to make toward the pro market, yet Apple itself seems to be working to retain the market as much as possible.

Now, what I do see is an example of Apple doing exactly what I'm suggesting with Shake. While the CPU state may not be anything to win Shake users over, QE taking over all of the compositing heavy lifting might turn something like a dual 1.25 Ghz machine into a screamer of a Shake machine. The same could hold true for other apps like PS and Illustrator provided Apple can talk Adobe into supporting Quartz rendering. CPU speed doesn't do as much for audio, but they have other specific needs that Apple could focus on.

By continuing to build out better, balanced boxes -- and I'm not saying that these are necessarily hitting on that point, though for QE having that wide bus from AGP to DDR-RAM will do a hell of a lot of good -- they may be left holding as good or better systems than Wintel should the CPU push lose it's steam. After all, that's the risk with CPUs - it's a huge investment hoping for a payoff. Apple can manage that risk by working with someone like nVidia to develop a GPU infrastructure that will deliver benefits to the same pro users, and probably do it in a way that Wintel can't match (as you see in QE). After duals might come quads, if they can get the bus issue addressed and if they can get the apps to thread reasonably.

By taking this strategy, Apple can tolerate not having the big, hot, fast CPU and go with 2, 4, 8 slower, cooler, cheaper ones. In some ways it makes far more sense. Why have 6 families of CPUs for palmtops, laptops, low-end desktops, high-end desktops, workstations, 1U servers, 4U servers, clusters, etc. Why not focus on one chip and simply add more for the more powerful systems?

I'm not advocating some direction here, and not all of these ideas necessarily make sense, but it seems to me that the history of desktop computing has been defined basically by marginal OSes running on a single CPU in an ATX case largely in isolation of all other systems. When you have narrow rules like those, all you can really do is 'more'. I'm just suggesting that if you want to really do something, don't follow, just change the rules.

Dump the ATX case for pretty flowered plastic. Build a non-marginal OS that is just as happy with 8 CPUs as 1. Develop your system to be fully aware of others around it (who here doesn't see Rendezvous as a foundation for a no-brainer distributed computing platform.) With enough of these things, you have flexibility in how you deliver value to users, without being dependent on one key component.

johnsonwax hits on a key point. Apple is in a unique position to do something really new and radical, because Apple controls both hardware and software. Further emphasizing the GPU, using more processors, promoting clustering, etc. are all within the realm of possibility.

These kinds of alternatives make me optimistic (and intrigued).

I also believe there are several reasons to be cautiously hopeful about the PowerPC and Apple's reliance upon it.

1) Jaguar is done. Apple finally has its operating system more or less where it wants it. Development on OS X can perhaps throttle back to a less accelerated pace, freeing up attention that can be focused on hardware. I emphasize "attention" because the mutual exclusivity of hardware and software development has been questioned by some of us -- Apple has both hardware engineers and software engineers, why can't it improve both simultaneously?

However, I believe this analysis excludes the importance of direction. The hardware engineer, presumably, gets paid whether he is squeezing more performance out of a 133MHz FSB or working to integrate RapidIO into the motherboard. A software engineer probably gets paid whether she is squashing bugs in the window manager or coding hardware acceleration into Quartz2D. But the hardware engineer can't determine to use RapidIO, nor the software engineer determine to accelerate 2D, without a go-ahead from management.

So while HW and SW development occur simultaneously, Apple management has a limited pool of attention that must be divided between the two. Hardware especially requires attention, because it involves cultivating partnerships with those vendors who can provide the needed components. Time Apple management spends overseeing and directing the development of the operating system is time they don't have to fly down to IBM HQ for a steak dinner and some chit-chat on the future of the PowerPC.

Of course Apple has managers over both areas, but I suspect their autonomy is relatively limited under Jobs. I doubt Mr. Rubenstein could simply up and sign a contract to buy nForce chipsets for the new Power Mac line. I also have a suspicion that it's primarily Jobs that gets any results out of Motorola, though I could very well be wrong. For a good while, Jobs' baby has been OS X, and the sooner it's in a refined state and he can focus on other things, the better it will be for Mac hardware.

With Jaguar, I think "sooner" may finally be "now."

2) I am very encouraged by IBM's newfound commitment to the desktop PowerPC. a) Even if by some twist of fate Macs don't get the Power4 Derivative Pro, it represents further development and market opportunities for the architecture. This can only be good for Apple. b) IBM's intention is to produce a 64-bit PPC. As BadAndy has pointed out, the way forward for x86 into 64 bits is not yet clear. If PowerPC can get there quickly and cleanly, that's a significant preemptive strike. c) As long as its marketshare is small, Apple will need to piggyback on other processor markets. Piggybacking on the embedded market has been good for Apple's laptops but not for their high-end towers. If IBM can create new markets for a desktop PPC, Apple will have another, much more suitable set of coattails for the PowerMac to ride.

3). Apple has been doing a lot to squeeze every last bit of performance from a limited architecture. AltiVec optimizations, Quartz Extreme, limiting unnecessary traffic to the CPU, etc. I've got to think that these things will pay off in a big way when the new chip hits -- like uncapping a well-shaken pop bottle.

4) The G4 is advancing again, albeit not at an x86 pace. This suggests that Apple will be happy to keep them on as a producer of chips for the laptops and home/edu desktops, preventing another single-supplier dead end. Who knows? Perhaps if the Power4 Derivate Pro does well, Moto will decide IBM doesn't deserve all the desktop PPC market and will jump back into the game with a competing chip. Perhaps, as BadAndy has suggested, IBM's announcement indicates that Moto already does have a competing product.

For these reasons, I'm fairly optimistic about Apple's future right now. Regardless of how it turns out, this is a very interesting time to be a Mac user. Of course, "may you live in interesting times" is actually a curse in some cultures...

quote:Originally posted by johnsonwax:'More' isn't enough to shift the market. 'Different' gets you somewhere. That's what the plastic was about - it was different, and different did get a certain market share boost. OS X is different, and it too will result in a boost. Faster CPUs - I don't think that'll quite do it. How about parallelism? How about grass roots distributed computing? How about unmatched hardware integration? These things will each appeal to a market that is looking for something that 'more' hasn't satisfied.

Firm agreement here.

Still, being stuck in 'less', rather than 'more' isn't a happy situation. The "I'm not going to pay more for less" sentiment has been vented in this thread, and is quite wide spread, after all.

Let's take a look around. In just about all computer (=PC) advertising, they advertise hardware metrics and a price. Higher price = bigger numbers for RAM, CPU speed, HD size et cetera. That's the way it has been for pretty much two decades now. (More actually, the mainframes weren't much different.) Anyone who doesn't fit into that "pay more - get more (=higher numbers)" pattern is fighting against a huge cultural conditioning, and thus limiting their market to a corresponding degree.